Taylor Swift went to meet Tom Hiddleston's mother in Suffolk in June - weeks after they began datingCredit:
Xposurephotos.com

She played her only concert of 2016 on Saturday night, at the US Grand Prix in Austin, Texas – surprising fans by performing Harris’s song What You Came For, which she co-wrote.

But, while she has been taking a break from music, the 26-year-old has spent the past three years fighting David Mueller, a Denver-based DJ, over allegations of sexual assault.

On Friday her deposition from July 2013 was made public, describing in detail the incident – which caused her bodyguards to confront Mr Mueller after the event.

“Right as the moment came for us to pose for the photo, he took his hand and put it up my dress and grabbed onto my ass cheek and no matter how much I scooted over it was still there,” Swift said.

“It was completely intentional, I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life.”

She also explained the emotional toll the alleged assault has taken on her.

“I remember being frantic, distressed, feeling violated in a way I had never experienced before,” she said in the deposition.

“A meet-and-greet is supposed to be a situation where you’re thanking people for coming, you’re supposed to be welcoming people into your home, which is the arena for that day. And for someone to violate that hospitality in that way, I was completely stunned.”

He lost his job days after the June 2013 incident, but insists that it was his colleague at the radio station, Eddie Haskell, who groped Swift.

Swift, however, has insisted it was Mr Mueller, and is determined to make an example of him.

“Ms Swift knows exactly who committed the assault — it was Mueller — and she is not confused in the slightest about whether her long-term business acquaintance, Mr Haskell, was the culprit,” her lawyers state in legal documents.

They argue that “Mueller alone was the perpetrator of the humiliating and wrongful conduct targeted against Ms Swift,” and add that his conviction “will serve as an example to other women who may resist publicly reliving similar outrageous and humiliating acts.”

Furthermore, sexual assault on university campuses has been highlighted by a string of headline-grabbing cases – most famously that of Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer, who served only three months for raping an unconscious woman at his university.

He claimed that Mr Haskell “described and demonstrated how he had put his arms around her, hands on her bottom.”

In response, Swift counter-sued in October 2015, demanding a jury trial.

If she wins, she claimed that she would donate any proceeds to “charitable organisations dedicated to protecting women from similar acts of sexual assault and personal disregard.”

Her legal team has argued that the photograph taken at that meet-and-greet, which allegedly shows Mueller groping Swift, should be kept from the public. They maintained that “it is all but assured that the photograph will be shared for scandalous and prurient interests.”